How to Benchmark Ocean Freight Rates: Is Your Quote Too High?
Your customer claims they have a rate $1,000 cheaper than your quote from Shanghai to Cleveland. How can you be certain?
Most of the time, you’re left guessing based on your gut, intuition, or market knowledge, but you can never know for sure.
This is an important detail when quoting customers, since too high a quote might mean loss of that shipment, while too low leaves you with less margin.
The Starboard Freight Index gives you one more tool to check your quote in comparison to the market.
See where your rate is standing
The Starboard Freight Index offers average ocean FCL rates across more than 2,000 trade lanes.
Input your origin and destination, select a container size, and see the current average rate, whether it's moving up or down, and compare it to your rate.
The Index covers 20', 40' and 40' HC containers and is being updated daily.
Rates are obtained from 24 independent sources, which include carriers, NVOCCs and platform bookings. All of them are anonymized and blended, meaning that you are seeing a benchmark rate in the market and not any individual price.
Use the market to check your quote
When you receive a quote for your cargo being shipped from Shanghai to Los Angeles, for example, validate it using the Index before issuing your own quote.
If you are way above the market, you may want to revisit your source. If you are below, then you may have some leeway on your margins.
This is not an actual booking quote, but just a method of getting the price in the market context. It’s free to use, and if you’re interested in taking things further, Starboard’s quoting products can help you spend less time quoting and more time winning.